Understanding Comics

Scott McCloud makes the interesting point that in his comic, there are a range of icons (not symbols) that are used in comics that we relate to. He explains that we are a self-centered race, and we somehow always find ourselves relating and/or extending ourselves to inanimate objects all the time. The majority of all those icons pin down to one factor - the face.

The face is what makes us involved in reading comics and watching cartoons. Cartoonists simplify a face to the point to whoever looks at it can perceive themselves as that character, or insert themselves in their shoes. No one can ever truly draw the visual we see when looking at someone's face in real life, so in turn, everyone ends up drawing their own simplified perception of someone's face whom they can relate to. Be it two dots for eyes and a line for a mouth, Bart Simpson, or Superman, we all can see them with human expressions because our mind processes them that way. It's a main reason why kids are so drawn into watching cartoons on the television all the time - whatever the cartoon adventures through, the kid adventures as well in their own universe. The kid becomes the character.

But the other cool thing that we're able to do as humans is extend ourselves to whatever objects we hold or are placed in. Our minds extend to the boundaries of what we are around, and also in a way, become that object. If we're driving a car, and someone fender-benders our car, we automatically think, "That idiot hit me!" instead of "That idiot hit my car!". I do the same when I play action video games and the character I'm playing as gets attacked in some way. The responsibility of you behind the object you relate to becomes personal, and therefore, you take personal offense to whatever happens to the object. When people insert themselves in the shells of characters they read in comics, the emotional or physical trauma that character goes through always tends to lead to imaginative personal offense as well. (But of course, not all comics are great at breaking that down, so it doesn't always work.)